How to Structure Your Website for SEO in 5 Easy Steps

The structure of your website plays a significant role in enhancing your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. But how can you create an SEO-friendly website structure for your business?

Fortunately, we’ve got answers for you. In this post, we’ll explain how to structure your website for SEO with our easy step-by-step guide. So just keep reading to find out how to build a website that boosts your search engine rankings!

Did you know that WebFX is an industry-leading SEO agency? Our award-winning SEO experts can develop, implement, and manage a custom SEO strategy that suits the needs of your business and helps you drive impressive results for your business.

We’ve already driven more than $6 billion in revenue for clients, and we can help boost your sales and revenue too. Speak with one of our strategists today by calling 888-601-5359 or contact us online to learn more about how our SEO services can take your business to new heights.

What is website structure?

Website structure, or website architecture, is the way that your site content is organized and presented. It refers to how content is linked together and categorized. Your website structure determines how search engine crawlers and users navigate your site.

Why website structure matters for SEO

Are you wondering why website structure matters to SEO? We’ve got you covered.

Search engines like Google use many ranking factors to determine your website’s place in the results, and your site structure is one of them.

Here are a few significant reasons why website structure matters for SEO:

Creates a positive user experience

Providing an excellent user experience for your website visitors is essential is a key component of any successful SEO strategy. In fact, 89% of consumers will shop with a competitor after having a poor user experience.

If your website visitors are leaving your website, Google will receive signals that your website isn’t helpful to users, decreasing your rankings as a result. An optimized site structure enables consumers to quickly find the information they need and navigate your website, keeping users on your website longer.

Optimizes your website for crawlers

Search engines like Google use web crawlers to crawl a website’s structure. These crawlers help search engines learn more about the content on your website and the topics it focuses on, so the search engine can index your pages and return them in search results.

With a good structure for your website, you can optimize your pages for web crawlers and enable them to easily access and index your web pages.

Supports intuitive internal linking structure

Sitelinks are a feature in search results that display your main website link plus some of your other internal page links. Snagging a search result with several sitelinks can help you increase your click-through rate (CTR) and web traffic to multiple pages on your website.

And having an SEO-friendly website structure can help search engines better understand and index your web pages, leading to more sitelinks and traffic for your business.

How to structure your website for SEO: Your step-by-step guide

Follow our five-step guide to learn how to structure your website for SEO below:

1. Plan out your site hierarchy
2. Optimize your URLs
3. Create a shallow depth navigation structure
4. Establish your header and footer
5. Use internal links

1. Plan out your site hierarchy

The hierarchy of your website is a system that organizes your web pages and content. In other words, think of your site hierarchy as a map of your website.

By planning out your site hierarchy first, you can develop a foundation for your website structure that will help you create a website that enhances your SEO strategy.

First, consider the main categories of your website that will drive the most conversions and revenue for your business. For example, if you primarily sell custom apparel, you may have a main site category for sweatshirts.

Then, you can think about your subcategories — like crewnecks and hoodies — under your main categories. If you offer several products, you may want to include separate pages for each type of product.

To ensure your hierarchy is SEO-friendly, keep your number of main categories between two and seven. More than this could overwhelm your site visitors and search engine crawlers. Although, if you have a larger ecommerce website with multiple products, more categories might make sense for you.

2. Optimize your URLs

Once you’ve planned out your site hierarchy, you can optimize your URLs for optimal SEO performance. URLs are another factor that can impact your rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). Both search engines and users like simple URLs that contain keywords with familiar words.

Since you’ve already planned out the organization of your site, your URLs can follow your hierarchy. Your URL should reflect the progression of your website to reach that page. For example, your URL will have your main domain name, then your main category page, followed by the name of your page.

A concise URL that’s readable and contains keywords is one of the best ways to set up your website for SEO success.

3. Create a shallow depth navigation structure

Ensuring that your website visitors can easily find the information they’re looking for, navigate between multiple pages, and eventually make purchases is essential for providing a great user experience. And creating a shallow depth navigation structure is one of the best ways to do just that.

If your navigation is complicated or hard to follow, users may leave your website and decide to visit a competitor’s instead. A navigation structure with a shallow depth allows your website visitors to easily and quickly access your most important pages.

You should ensure that users can navigate to the page they need in just a few clicks. As a result, a shallow depth navigation structure ensures your revenue-driving pages aren’t buried too deep within your website structure, increasing conversions and sales for your business.

4. Establish your header and footer

The next step in our guide for how to structure your website for SEO is to establish your header and footer.

Your header should contain the main elements and categories of your website hierarchy. To enhance your website structure for SEO, you’ll want to display your site’s main sectors in your header at the top of your page.

You can also include the main categories from your header in the footer at the bottom of your page. This gives your website visitors easy access to your site pages, no matter where they are on the page.

Plus, because you’ve included your main category pages in your header, you can drive more traffic to your product and purchase pages, increasing your sales and revenue in the process.

5. Use internal links

Another great tip to create an SEO-friendly website structure is to insert internal links throughout your website. Internal links can:

• Help users navigate your website
• Establish the relationship between your pages and content on your website
• Help search engines crawl and index your website

By inserting internal links through your pages and content, you can encourage users to continue to browse your pages until they are ready to convert into paying customers. Internal links can also help improve your search engine rankings for similar keywords and content.

Create an SEO-friendly website structure that boosts your rankings with WebFX

Are you ready to create an SEO-friendly website structure that helps you outrank your competitors and drives more web traffic? That’s where WebFX comes in.

Our team of over 500 experts has more than two decades of experience building websites that boost sales and revenue for businesses just like yours. Say goodbye to low search engine rankings and say hello to increased online visibility and revenue with our top-tier SEO services.

Get ahead of your competitors today! Give us a call at 888-601-5359 or contact us online to learn more about how we can help drive more revenue for your business.